


Dawn

by DarkShadeless



Series: Overseer Sar [39]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Feels, Struggle, finding out who you want to be, internalized cultural values that are pretty shitty for your self-image, or starting to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 06:07:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15455010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Kendru takes the first step on a new path. It's long overdue.





	Dawn

 

 

Kendru is going to be late.

He knows it, actually _cares_ for once, for the first time since before he had his first lesson. Before his father woke him in the middle of the night, so they would make it to a rundown shuttle half a continent away.

The hurried departure had been looming over him for months. Kendru’s family wasn’t so high-standing that his failures could be ignored. Shafis had petitioned on his behalf, pressed for longer than their reputation could withstand, really, but in the end he had been denied. His youngest son would not be afforded the means to suppress his shameful inclinations.

An unsanctioned Force sensitive had no place on Csilla.

Deep, deep down, even as he fought not to make a spectacle of himself in the face of his unceremonious exile, Kendru had buried a spark of relief. So deep he wouldn’t have to find it and consider what it meant. He didn’t want this! This curse. He never had, never would but there was no denying the Force was his to wield regardless.

_It whispers in his ear, curls around his shoulders when he cries. It snaps at those who mock him, ready to tear them apart. Sometimes he thinks it might be his only friend._

He should have done the sensible thing, the _right_ thing, found himself a new place in the galaxy and ignored it's call.

His father would have nothing of it and Kendru can’t serve their family, he has no worth at all, but he could fulfil that last request. Odessen it was. Learning to control what the Sith call power and the Jedi count as a privilege.

He had done as he was told because there was nothing left for him but his parents' pity and well-wishes. Their desire that Kendru _live_ , in a place where he might be accepted. He had obeyed, if not gladly. _Just another of his failures._

The face in the mirror still belongs to the same sullen, tired teenager that it did yesterday. He’s leaning even farther toward ‘tired’ today. Kendru can’t claim he has slept and not for the usual reasons.

Finding a companion for the night is just another way to distract his mind, to lose himself in the now. Forget who and what he is. Forget about the impurity of his blood. The people here… they don’t see that when they look at him. Some look down on him for the color of his skin, for being ’alien scum’, but they don’t see _it_. _How can they not when he can barely stand to look at his reflection?_

The Force isn’t a curse to them. It’s not a fault. 

Fractures trace along the mirror’s edges, a result of control issues he has grown out of. One of them bisects its surface in a clean line. Kendru’s eyes trail over the imperfections that shatter his image the way he felt it should be. Again, he’s haunted by what has kept him up all night.

He had only said yes because Master Timmns had pressed him. Because he was on thin ice, his record being what it is.

_Tardiness. Inattentiveness. Unable to complete the lesson for a variety of reasons._

He hadn’t had the first idea what he was agreeing to.

 

_The molten metal, shot through with red, rises out of the bowl like a snake following their charmer’s flute. It curls around the edges of the shard their teacher holds aloft with an invisible touch._

_Sar is manipulating both with an ease that makes Kendru’s own attempts at levitation look like a bantha trying to juggle casks of merulian cider._

_His gestures are measured. Simplistic, yet elegant. Under their influence the lattice of metal and china grows by increments._

_It’s like nothing Kendru has seen. Until now there has been no time the Chiss can say he ever wanted any ability his connection to the Force gave him, this thing that birth, biology, chance has forced on him. It’s a small flare but it’s there, to be fanned into a flame._

_Overseer Sar’s voice is uncharacteristically calm, if stern. It holds none of the bite, the urgency that laces their combat instruction._

_“Theuti dorizi wa is an art form Sith have practiced for time untold. It was born from the very foundations of our culture.” He pauses and inspects the construct with a critical eye. The shard that is orbiting it slowly sinks back to the ground, another rising to take its place. “To be Sith is to understand that what is broken can never be the same.”_

_This resonates with something inside of Kendru, with hopes and dreams long crushed that he might be just like his brother after all. That he could leave behind what made him different and unsuitable. Discomfort rears its ugly head._

_“But damage is inevitable. Avoiding it is mortal yet also futile. To live is to fight and to fight is to bleed. To suffer. To know loss. All of what we experience leaves scars and they change us.”_

_The shard settles into place neatly, with a beckoning curl of their teacher’s fingers._

_“Yet while that which is broken cannot be the same as it once was, it can be stronger and more beautiful for the cracks. Where others fall, where they despair and give up, we discard our weaknesses and forge ourselves anew. That is what this ritual reminds us of.”_

Kendru can't seem to stop thinking about that lesson. It echoes inside his mind even when he tries to meditate, to quiet it as he does the whispers of the Force. In it's wake desire rises so fiercely he aches.

 

 


End file.
